Mettrum Facilities in Bowmanville

Before it became “medical or adult-use cannabis,” it was weed, an illegal plant grown in basements and sold in back alleys. Now it’s a publicly traded commodity that’s expanding on a global scale.

One company that’s been growing almost faster than the rest of the industry is Canopy Growth Corporation, and on February 1 it got permission for a significant growth spurt.

Insider Financial reported that Canopy, which already owns various subsidiaries, just received court approval to acquire medical marijuana giant Mettrum Health Corporation. With this acquisition, Canopy, already the largest licensed producer in Canada, becomes one of the largest producers of marijuana on the planet.

“The biggest licensed producers in Canada all have a big lead when you look at it globally,” says Jordan Sinclair, director of communications for Canopy, in an interview with -Marijuana.com. Sinclair adds that, though there are many ways to measure the size and scope of a corporation, Canopy is no doubt one of the largest.

Canopy will tweak how Mettrum does business to conform with the needs of its new parent company. It’s a practice Canopy undertakes every time it acquires a new entity, and it’s certainly not their first time at the takeover table.

“When we acquired Tweed Farms, which was operating as Park Lane at the time, they didn’t yet have their licence. So we applied a bunch of know-how that we learned by getting our own licence. For the Bedrocan Canada acquisition, we made a very unique arrangement: Bedrocan has its own standardized operating procedures, so we didn’t change anything. For Mettrum, we’ll take a really good look at the way they’re doing things. They grew a large customer base for a reason.”

Regardless of its impressive list of customers, Mettrum had to make a significant recall in November due to a pesticide that was not disclosed by a third-party manufacturer. Canopy is adamant that this kind of thing must not happen under its watch.

“[We] have to make sure specifically that anything that might have led to Mettrum’s recent product recall is really tightened up to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” As bad as a recall was, Sinclair says it shows that “the system is working.”

Tweed Farms is set to be a provider of adult-use cannabis once legislation is put in place across Canada, while Bedrocan will exclusively supply the medical marijuana sector.

Mettrum is in less of a hurry to define itself. “Some of [the positioning] will be dictated by the laws and regulations, to understand what production will look like. But Mettrum rests really nicely as a natural health product line that has some lifestyle elements to it. It’s less about defining it as medical or recreational, and more about just finding things on the spectrum and putting that brand across so you can be diversified,” Mettrum says in a statement.

The acquisition didn’t just bring more cannabis to Canopy Growth. The company has also acquired the sister product line called Mettrum Originals, hemp-based foods and topical products.

Jon Hiltz is Canadian-based correspondent for Marijuana.com. A slightly different version of this story appears at Marijuana.com.